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_________ Steps to Writing Your Novel

Stay at work late doing work that is due but that you a) have not been given time to complete, and b) are not getting paid for.

Stop in the parking lot to hug a former student and to hear about her semester in Copenhagen, her journey to Barcelona with other kids you know, her most recent internship applications, her brother’s (also a former student) recent success with a documentary that will appear on the Discovery Channel. When she asks what you what’s new with you, respond truthfully: Nothing.

Refuse to dwell on that answer.

Get gas and wait patiently for the attendant to check his text messages even though the window is down and you’re freezing because you have an attendant and that’s why you come here and that kind of laziness on your part deserves some small punishment.

Go to the library and read every fiction title in the talking book section. Choose none.

Wonder, one more time, why every talking book library you’ve ever perused has so many copies of books by Alexander McCall Smith.

Read every non-fiction title in the talking book section. Choose two that you find on the second to last shelf.

Drive home in silence.

Sit in the driveway reading texts from your boss that make no sense and that you could read tomorrow with exactly the same conclusion.

Vent in a group text that makes no sense about the email that makes no sense.

Run the vacuum and continue to ignore the noise it’s making until it is clear that the reason it’s making a noise is that it’s broken and there is no way it will pick up any hair.

Feed the cats even though you’re aggravated about the hair.

Feed the dogs too even though they’re no help in that department, either.

Go upstairs where the comforter is not only full of cat hair but is also dirty because yesterday one cat got stuck in the (not-used-in-recent-history) bread oven which is now used to store old newspapers and kindling.

Put the comforter in the wash.

Wonder what happened to your tea.

When your second daughter comes home and asks, “What’s for dinner?” suggest a few things and then instruct her to get the frozen sauce out of the freezer while you put water on for pasta.

Answer the following text from your husband who is still shopping: Brocollini?

Answer your daughter’s boyfriend when he asks if you have any meat (meat you buy only for him since no one else eats meat here).

Answer him when he holds up the chicken apple sausages and says, “Do these actually have apple in them?

Answer the phone and speak with your niece’s daughter who has never called before. She’s bored and wants to tell you about The Martian starring Matt Damon who looks like her Dad.

Consider this and decide: She’s right. Her dad does look like Matt Damon.

Go back upstairs.

Tuck in your husband’s side of the bed where he tears the sheets out.

Remember: Have to go to my mom’s this weekend. Need to pack.

Pack.

Take the computer out of the case.

Try for the 1000th time since you’ve lived here to plug something into an outlet that is sixty years old and can’t accommodate a three prong.

Don’t even consider trying to find an adapter.

Sigh. Wish you had tea.

Think: Wait. Didn’t I make tea?

Answer a text from your third (and last) daughter: “What’s for dinner?”

Make the garlic bread. You can’t expect them to have pasta without garlic bread. They love garlic bread. You love garlic bread.

Hug your middle daughter. She still lets you.

Find the grated cheese no one else can find.

Put away the blueberries people ate while they were waiting for the pasta to cook.

Eat standing up.

Take a break to flip a water bottle so your daughter can videotape you doing it and send it to your other niece’s son.

Clean up from dinner.

Unclog vacuum.

Vacuum.

Unpack couch covers — the latest attempt (after buying a cat bed they don’t use, the Furminator, a special attachment to the vacuum) to get rid of cat hair.

This reminds you: Put the comforter in the dryer.

This reminds you of that book, If you give a mouse a cookie.

This reminds you that you thought your kids would always be little so you should go ahead and vacuum something while they were busy painting at the table and singing Good Night Irene.

There’s no going back now to whatever it was you were doing.

Meanwhile, the cats have gotten into the shipping box and they are very fun to watch. Mesmerizing, really. Like Fiona, the preemie hippo at the Cincinnati zoo who has almost single-handedly gotten you through the first 100 days of the apocalypse.

When your daughter and her boyfriend go to the diner for pie, order banana cream even though you’re full.

If it’s too late to dig into that novel especially when you’re distracting by cats hiding inside the box and outside under the flaps and you’re anticipating pie, write something else.

Keep writing even when your husband calls from the kitchen: “Is this your tea in the microwave?”